<p> A mixed methods sequential explanatory design was used to conduct research to help fill the gap in the literature on cross-cultural differences between Ghanaian workers in American Multinational Companies and Ghanaian Companies in Ghana. The purpose of this research was to identify, compare, and make understandable to multinational companies the work ethic of Ghanaian workers in issues related to centrality of work, leisure, and morality/ethics. In the quantitative phase, using a stratified random sampling approach, 300 participants completed surveys on work ethic. The results were analyzed using SPSS software package. The qualitative phase followed with interview of 30 purposively sampled participants on work ethics. The results were coded, organized, and categorized using NVivo. The findings did not support the perceptions held by American Multinational Companies that Ghanaians have a poor work ethic, are lazy, and love pleasure. In contrast, the study results indicated that Ghanaian worker ethics included working hard to achieve a goal, doing voluntary work, meeting deadlines; having good relationships with peers, subordinates, and superiors. The results also indicated Ghanaian workers in USA companies exhibit a set of work ethics different from the Ghanaians working in Ghanaian companies, self-employed, and not employed. The results of this research were significant at 98% confidence level and are generalizable to settings that have similar cultural expos&eacute; as Ghana, considering the differences noted which were mainly cultural based.</p>

<p> With the outbreak of civil war in Somalia in the late eighties and early nineties, many Somali fled the country, often with young children in tow. This study used a qualitative method of individual interviews to explored the current ideology and socio-structural living situation of 8 Somali male youth 18 -23. This research focuses on exploring the social-psychological interactions between Somali refugees with forced migration experiences and their American born sons. This exploration was in service of determining trauma symptomology in the offspring of refugees with forced migration experiences. Participants completed measures of trauma-transmitted symptomology measuring, intrusion, avoidance and hyperarousal, as well as measures recording Primary Care Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, (PC-PTSD). The PC-PTSD scale is currently in use by the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs. Participants were interviewed in English, and queried about subjects such as; initial knowledge of parents&rsquo; refugee status, knowledge of parent&rsquo;s past trauma, current relationship with parents, and their views on how Somali&rsquo;s refugee history might affect male Somali youth today. Data gathered from this study was analyzed using five multilayered stages according to Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). The results of this study uncovered concurrent themes among the participants to include: Communication, Transformative Identities, Faith, Acculturation/Integration, and Familial Ties. The results of this study revealed that a consistent optimistic family and community narrative was able to positively influence the current and future narratives and ideology of the youth studied. These findings coincide with Bowen&rsquo;s theory of self-differentiation, and positive coping methodology (Gialadi &amp; Bell, 2012).</p>

<p> Past sightings of red-tailed (<i>Cercopithecus ascanius</i>) x blue (<i>Cercopithecus mitis</i>) hybrid monkeys in Uganda indicates the potential for hybridization between <i>C. ascanius</i> and <i> C. mitis</i> individuals. Apart from Gombe Stream National Park, there is no of evidence suggestive of <i>C. ascanius &times; C. mitis</i> monkey hybridization at investigated East African locations. Phylogenetic analysis was examined using Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequence data of twelve <i>C. mitis stuhlmanni</i> samples (from two populations) in Kibale National Park (KNP), Uganda to test for any evidence of hybridization. </p><p> Strict mono-phylogeny among two new <i>C. mitis</i> haplotypes were detected. Genetic diversity measurements support neither interspecific or intraspecific hybridization among <i>C. mitis</i> individuals from populations within Kibale National Park. To intensify the implications of this study further examination should include an increase in sample size(s), mtDNA comparison of <i>C. mitis</i> subspecies from additional populations at East African locations, and assessment of nuclear and genomic DNA.</p><p>

<p> Octavia Butler asked if black skin was so disruptive a force that the mere presence of it alters a story? In a post-colonial era, skin color remains a polarizing topic. While humans are still redefining perceptions about race, people across planet earth are opening up to the possibility of the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life. This paper explores how the acknowledgment of a galactic presence would transform perceptions of whiteness. The experiences of the best-selling author and proclaimed contactee, Whitley Strieber, are used as case studies to analyze if Amero-European ingrained bias toward melanin would influence the western world&rsquo;s interactions with dark-skinned extraterrestrials species. The white male is portrayed as the prototypical sci-fi nerd in popular American culture; however, the themes and struggles present in science fiction remain deeply connected with those present in African American culture. Despite the presence of extraterrestrials in African centered tradition, Stieber's experience demonstrates that whiteness still holds influence on the dominant cultural position regarding alien contact. I will practice Sankofa to trace African centered histories and traditions designed for communicating with entities from different dimensions, realities or even planets that continue to perpetuate in African American culture. I argue that African American culture has been addressing aspects of reality unacknowledged by the western world. I demonstrate that elements of the cosmic, supernatural, extraterrestrial or superhuman continue to manifest in African centered culture. These continually dismissed observations get lost in a world where the European Enlightenment has led to a culture in which whiteness establishes itself as &ldquo;a norm that represents an authoritative, delimited and hierarchical mode of thought&rdquo; as Joe Kinechole notes, limiting Amero-European culture from fully embracing a world view that includes extraterrestrials. Whiteness changes as it interacts in a range of settings and this paper examines the role of whiteness in a galactic environment by exploring how whiteness navigates through alien spaces.</p><p>

<p> Leadership in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) has remained an under-researched area in the management literature, especially in developing countries such as Nigeria. SME owner-managers in Nigeria lacked in-depth understanding of their leadership style to objectively evaluate its implication on long-term performance and growth of their enterprise. The purpose of this qualitative multiple-case study was to explore the experiences of SME owner-managers in Nigeria to gain an in-depth understanding of their leadership style and its implication for long-term performance and growth of their enterprise. The conceptual framework for this study was anchored in two key concepts; leadership styles and leadership in SMEs, with the full range leadership model as the theoretical foundation. The research question sought to explore the role of SMEs owners and managers leadership styles in the long-term success of their enterprise. Interview data were collected from 6 SME owner-managers who employ less than 200 employees within the manufacturing, education, and trading sectors. The cross-case synthesis technique was used for data analysis which allowed for within-case analysis and cross-case comparisons. Findings from this study showed that Nigerian SME owner-managers do not follow any specific leadership style. They exhibited few characteristics of transformational and transactional leadership behaviors, leaning more to transactional leadership. This study has significance for positive social change by providing insights on how leadership styles can improve the performance and sustainability of Nigerian SMEs, thus increasing their capacity to create employment.</p><p>

No description available.

<p> La litt&eacute;rature et le cin&eacute;ma sur l'&eacute;migration d&eacute;crivent principalement les personnages migrants irr&eacute;guliers comme des damn&eacute;s n'ayant aucune place dans un monde globalis&eacute;. Nonobstant cela, les &laquo; harragas &raquo; s&rsquo;empressent de &laquo; br&ucirc;ler &raquo; leur identit&eacute; sur des bateaux minuscules et surcharg&eacute;s, dans des p&eacute;riples mortels, et all&eacute;goriquement compar&eacute;s &agrave; une qu&ecirc;te d'initiation. Ce faisant, ils s'efforcent d'exister en traversant silencieusement des fronti&egrave;res &eacute;motionnelles, psychologiques et physiques. Par cons&eacute;quent, &agrave; travers des romans et des films contemporains d'Afrique du Nord et de l'Ouest sur l'immigration irr&eacute;guli&egrave;re, je montre que le confinement dans un processus silencieux est en r&eacute;alit&eacute; un signe de r&eacute;sistance des migrants africains francophones sans papiers. </p><p> Ma dissertation s'articule autour de quatre parties principales, &agrave; savoir un chapitre pr&eacute;liminaire sur les perspectives th&eacute;oriques, et trois autres chapitres sur le franchissement des fronti&egrave;res comme un voyage initiatique, le silence en contexte d&rsquo;&eacute;migration irr&eacute;guli&egrave;re et le lien entre immigration et r&eacute;sistance. </p><p> Dans ma recherche, je me r&eacute;f&egrave;re aux concepts de silence et de r&eacute;sistance pour explorer divers aspects du franchissement ill&eacute;gal des fronti&egrave;res et ses cons&eacute;quences. En particulier, je me focalise sur les corps des &laquo; clandestins &raquo;, qui transmettent un message m&ecirc;me s'ils s'av&egrave;rent souvent &ecirc;tre des cadavres. Dans ce processus, je m'appuie sur le Monomythe de Joseph Campbell, notamment les &eacute;tapes du voyage du h&eacute;ros, les id&eacute;es de Mbembe sur le postcolonialisme et les th&eacute;ories sur le silence d&eacute;velopp&eacute;es par Van den Heuvel, de la Motte, Hanus &amp; Nazarova et Le Breton. J'utilise aussi la th&eacute;orie de James Scott sur les formes de r&eacute;sistance au quotidien, et je parle du concept d'initiation tel que d&eacute;fini par des th&eacute;oriciens comme Amadou Ou&eacute;draogo. </p><p> En fin de compte, le &laquo; br&ucirc;lage &raquo; des fronti&egrave;res dans les productions litt&eacute;raires pourrait &ecirc;tre analys&eacute; comme un acte silencieux de survie et de r&eacute;sistance des personnages africains postcoloniaux qui cherchent &agrave; changer leur image de perdants, m&ecirc;me s'ils font face &agrave; un monde occidental qui, graduellement, ferme ses fronti&egrave;res et se pr&eacute;sente comme une &laquo; forteresse. &raquo;</p><p>

<p> The detective or crime novel is most often categorized as popular fiction and stands out as a genre that is difficult to classify because it differs from the realistic novel. My study that aims to scrutinize the Francophone African detective novel that deals with the immigrant experience is twofold. First, I underline the originality of a novel that blends crime and immigration, and second, I point to the social and anthropological features of such novels. As a matter of fact, my dissertation analyzes the intersection between criminality and transhumance in order to shed light on Africa&mdash;where immigrants depart from&mdash;and Europe, especially France, where their lives sit stranded between necessity and expense. This work also examines how immigrants&rsquo; deaths are not considered homicides that deserve a police investigation. Building on theories from Cultural Studies such as sociology, political philosophy and textual analysis, I contend that authors such as Bolya Baenga, Achille Ngoye and Jean-Roger Essomba offer fiction that ultimately raise the question of the value of African lives at a moment when these very lives are considered unworthy of hospitality and cast out of society. The novels analyzed in this work suggest that postcolonial African States and their European counterparts share a responsibility in the reduction of immigrant&rsquo;s lives to irrelevant lives, sanctionable by death.</p><p>

<p> In the South African federal elections in May 2014, over one million born-frees failed to register to vote. This lack of political participation was surprising because this was the first election in which this new generation of voters, who had never lived under the oppressive apartheid regime, was eligible to vote. It was hypothesized that social trust and corruption, as it undermines political trust, were contributing factors to the low rates of youth voter turnout. A pilot study was developed and implemented with a small group of South Africans who were participating in a youth development program at a nongovernmental organization in the Western Cape. Focus group and interview data suggested that corruption, crime rates, and access to adequate services were of large concern in this sample. A survey developed through adaptation of items from the 2012 South African Reconciliation Barometer and the World Bank&rsquo;s Integrated Questionnaire for the Measurement of Social Capital showed a potential relationship between levels of political and social trust and voting behaviour. Due to these results, and the finding that participants were highly engaged with social media, recommendations to increase youth political participation included social media campaigns, using Facebook to create social capital, and promotion of education as a tool to develop interpersonal trust and political participation through enhanced access, quality, and scholarships. One novel finding within this research was that respondents expected the government to be the provider of tangible goods and services whereas the onus of completing education and securing employment was on the individual. This group seems to have a sense of personal agency that, if capitalized upon, could create a generation of politically active young people. Despite methodological concerns and limitations associated with sample size, this pilot study is an important contribution to the political participation literature and opens the door for large-scale quantitative studies to examine more closely the impacts of corruption, political trust, and social trust on voting behaviours in the born-free generation.</p><p>

This thesis contributes an empirically informed understanding of postcolonial experience and musical expression in West Africa through an ethnographic study of amateur brass bands (fanfares) in the Republic of Benin. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Western hegemonic cultural tradition of the brass band was exported across the globe through imperialist institutions such as the military and the church. Music in colonial Dahomey was an integral part of the French civilizing mission, and the brass band took center stage. Brass bands remain pervasive in present-day Benin and perform in a multitude of political, social, and religious contexts. Previous scholarship subsumes postcolonial musical performance into social scripts of resistance, framing brass bands in particular within cultural modes of mimesis, indigenization, or appropriation. Pushing against these canonical narratives, this thesis illustrates apolitical, affective, and embodied modes of experiencing colonialism's material and musical debris. Broadly, the ethnography presented here speaks to four themes. The first of these is material. Evident in musicians' accounts are materials' sonic inclinations: how instrument design and disrepair constrain musical ideals, and how different metals encourage particular pitches and timbres. Present, too, is the social and affective capacity of material: how ideas about brass instruments shape histories, erect styles, construct tastes, move bodies, induce anxieties, and proffer futures. The second theme is precarity. Fanfare musicians “get by” in an exploitative (musical) economy, are made anxious by ambiguous understandings of brass instruments, and manage an undercurrent of uncertainty in a social milieu rife with rumor and distrust. A third theme arising is that of the body, broadly conceived. This thesis illustrates the corporeal demands of fanfare performance, the embodied experience of blowing brass instruments, and the social value of bodily strength and exertion. The fourth theme is entanglement. Beninese musicians' experience of fanfare is entangled within (at times contradictory) ideas of the past, imaginings of the outside, emotions in the present, and expectations for the future. Entanglement likewise extends to musical instruments: the multiple valences of materials collide in brass instruments, as do histories, traditions, and feelings.